Samsung roadmap shows 40 to 42-inch OLED panels will be available by 2010

In a conference earlier last week, Samsung Executive Vice President and CTO Ho Kyoon Chung announced Samsung’s roadmap for OLED displays.

Tech-On reports Chung believes Samsung will usher in the third wave for the mobile display industry in the form of OLED displays and that the OLED market will reach $3.7 billion USD by 2010. The big electronics makers are all scrambling to get a piece of the $3 billion dollar pie with Sony grabbing the first bite with its recently announced 11-inch XEL-1 OLED HDTV.

Japanese rivival Toshiba also announced this month that it would have a 30-inch OLED full HDTV on the market by 2009. According to Chung, Samsung expects to have 14-inch, 15-inch, and 21-inch OLED panels available in 2009 with large 40 to 42-inch OLED full HD panels on the market by 2010. That would mean Toshiba would beat Samsung to market with larger screen OLED panels if it can meet its self-imposed 2009 deadline.

Toshiba, once a strong supporter of SED technology, appears to be the technology leader in OLED after its patent and manufacturing deals for SED displays dissolved last year.

In May of this year, Sony announced the world’s first flexible OLED panel a mere 0.3mm thick and able to produce 16.7 million colors. Samsung says it will have flexible OLED panels on the market by 2012 at the latest. There are more plans for OLED technology that merely using them for HDTV and computer screens, we will see OLED lighting systems at some point.

Chung told Tech-On, “It won't be long before we commercialize them (OLED lighting systems); because the OLED's light emitting efficiency is currently doubling every year. The company currently achieves 50lm/W luminance, a life of 20,000 hours till the initial luminance halves and a color rendering property of more than 80 colors.”

Zero chance my ass. Maybe zero chance any more will jump on the 2160p bandwagon this QUARTER, but somebody will eventually play the "Hey look at me!" card with a competitor to Westinghouse. Yes, look closely and Westinghouse already has a 2160p model in production.

You "Never" and "Zero Chance" people burn my britches with your lack of understanding. You know at one time people said we'd NEVER go faster than sound. WRONG!